Saturday, April 28, 2018

Putin Calls for New Russian World Atlas Showing Original Russian Names that Others have Changed

Paul
Goble

Staunton, April 28 – Vladimir Putin
has directed the Russian Geographic Society along with Russian government
agencies to prepare a new world atlas showing Russian toponyms that other countries
may have replaced in order to protect “historical and geographical truth,” the
latest step in his promotion of his “Russian world” notion.

At the same time,
Putin assures that “Russia does not intend to impose anything on others.”But despite that declaration, his latest project
will put pressure on Russia’s neighbors many of whom are changing place names
in ways that Moscow and many Russians find objectionable as “anti-Russian.”

But as with most
such Putin proposals, this argument only works in one direction: he wants to
challenge any renaming of Russian toponyms by others but will invariably oppose
anyone who tries to restore a non-Russian name to places Moscow has imposed a
Russian one on, such as Koenigsberg for a place Russians now call Kaliningrad.